Sunday, April 20, 2014

The Harvester (A Post for Easter)

Death.

That great equalizer of all men.

The Abomination. The Harvester. He who
reaps. He who moves in the dark; who cannot be escaped. Men have tried to
outrun him. But he is patient.

He is at the beginning of the race, to
see the runners off. He watches, from the stands as they sprint, sometimes with
ease, sometimes panting. And he is there, at the end, to shake hands with winners
and losers alike. All men are equal to him. Kings and peasants. Old and new. No
prejudice stands, in him who in time conquers all things.

Men have tried to overcome him. Kings
have sought godhood. Mortals have hunted for immortality. Gilgamesh sought a
fruit, to keep him young forever. Xerxes sought a power that would never fade
from the earth (and Death saw them both beneath the ground, clearly as above).
They have built palaces to last through all ages, and tombs to house them after
their earthly time is spent. Death laughs at them all; at their grand schemes
and their endless armies, their stores of wealth and golden temples. He laughs
at them because despite their splendor, he knows that he will greet them all in
time. He will shake their hands, and walk them away, another soul hewn down at
the ankles.

Wheat. He, the harvester, must hew it all
in turn.

Of course, death knows nothing of what
awaits the souls on the other side of him. He is a gatekeeper. He is the toll-collector,
to pass the bridge. He is the price that all men must pay, willing or not.
Adam-spawn. Humanity’s Bane.

All things of this world are his.

Or so it seemed for many years. Eons of
human lives were spread out before him; races run and ended, and he lay his axe
to the roots of the young and the old, and let their ankles splinter.

All men had to pass him.

Then came a day, when something was not
quite right.

Death stood as death has always stood,
smiling. He had set his axe against a young tree; his might could not stay the
stronger and the older blade. He had passed by, and there was fear in his eyes,
as there always was, as he went on. Then, for a few moments, Death remained. He
wanted to watch. To witness the fruits of what he had wrought. The sorrow that
followed. Such a peculiar trait, so human in its essence. Sadness.

He watched, and was satisfied.

And then, something changed. It appeared
that there stood a man, before him. Not a king. A simple man. But he stood as
one that none could refuse, as one whom even the stars trembled to praise, and
for the briefest moment, Death felt something tremble inside him.

The man stood, and he looked Death
straight into the eyes. Fear. Death had never felt it, himself, though he had
seen it enough to understand what it must have been like. The man was not
afraid to look at him, to see him for what he was. And then the man reached out
his hand, and spoke quietly:

“Arise.”

From behind, emerging from that void into
which Death himself had never looked, the man who had already passed by him,
appeared again. He walked away, and with his back towards the darkness, he
returned. But of course, Death knew that this wasn’t possible. No one walked
away from him, once he had taken their hand, or greeted them with a kiss. No
one returned from that great beyond.

Something most certainly did not seem
right.

And this was not the last time that he
saw that man who stood so boldly, who spoke so clearly, he who looked Death in
the eyes. Not much time had passed before his axe had claimed another. Her
ankles were taken from under her. She had fallen gently, and passed by him
afraid. He had greeted her with a nod and a smile.

But then the Man had appeared again, and
stared with unwavering eyes. He lifted his hand, and spoke that word again:
“Arise.”

And from the darkness, the girl stepped.

This could not be so. No one returned. No
one. Death knew that much. Not kings, not queens, not prophets. All died, and
all stayed dead.

Even this was not the end. The man, with
those blazing eyes, had stared into his dark soul again. Another life claimed,
that would not be allowed to rest. “Come forth,” the man cried, and the tomb
was opened.

No! It wasn’t possible. Death roared at
the unfairness, at the unrightness of it all. No one came back. No one passed
him by a second time. No one. No one challenged him and lived. Of course, he
knew, this man would be the same. Like all the others, he would have to meet
Death himself, one day. He would feel the axe at the ankles, the scythe at his
shadow, and he would tumble. He would have to walk that dark road, into the
shadows of the after-path, with the fear in his eyes.

And soon enough, the day came. Death was
pleased to watch. Because now, of course, he got his answer. This man, who
challenged him so bravely, was nothing to fear. He was another prophet. A
madman, and a fool. His own people handed him over to die, and Death was not
begrudged a smile as the man was hanged upon the tree.

The blood. The tears. The sweat. Death
loved an execution. He loved the taste of it, and the billowing ripple, which
poured through the crowd. He loved to stand before them, with his axe in hand,
as he struck at the roots of his victim, and took a soul by the scruff of its
neck. Here, he was in the spotlight.

Here, the man on that cross was just like
every man. He had no power to stay the axe, to rebuke he who hewed every ankle.
And soon, the man released his last breath. He fell, and when his soul slipped
free of its frame, the earth rattled. The sky broke, and the whip of heaven
tore across it.

When he passed by Death, he passed with
doubled shoulders. He was a broken man. Little better than a slave. In his
eyes, terror shone; the terror of a condemned man. The terror of a man who knew
that he was stepping into the dark. Death laughed. Even this man, who spoke and
called men forth, could not overthrow him.

Yet.

Long, Death waited in the streets that
day, tasting the fear and the sadness, the hatred and the loathing from every
soul he found. But soon, even those flavors died, the excitement at the end of
the hunt. All that was left was sadness. The numbness of mourning.

Until, that is, something happened that
he had never felt before. That flicker of fear that he had felt, when those
human eyes had met his, had returned. This time, it was worse. It was greater.
It moved in his soul and it shook him to his feet. The road beneath him was
buckling. Something was happening that had never happened, in all of history.

He turned, for the first time in his
entire life, and stared into that void, the fearful blackness, and saw it shake
upon its pillars. He heard the screams of voices and the cheer of celestial
trumpets, rattling his teeth inside his jaws. Horror and jubilation mingled.

And then, in the midst of the darkness, a
shape appeared. The shape of the man, returning, but not as Death had seen him,
before. He stood tall, now. He stood as a king. But no king of earth was he; no
king who claimed a scrap of stone and sought to be a god. This was much more
than that.

The light that shone from him was not
stolen light; it was his to give, and his to take away. It was the same light
that he had spoken himself, and which Death had never seen with his own eyes.

Fear. Deeper and more horrible than Death
had ever imagined it could be, surged within him, knotting in his stomach. An
anchor in his soul. He was captivated, and for the first time, it was he who found himself incapable of
fleeing. There was no escape. There was no conquest, here. Death raised his
axe, but it wilted in his hands. He bared his fangs, but they were dulled to
nubs. His venom was dried. His malice was spilled out, and as he fell to his
knees, a collar was bound around his neck.

A yoke. Death became a slave. No more to
run free. He was turned into a trophy by this shining Prince of Heaven. “But
how?” He cried in misery. “I am Adam’s Bane. Only Adam can undo me.”

And the man replied, with a voice that
rumbled in the sky: “I am the UnAdam. I am Adam as he should have been. And
you, Death, the Abomination of Creation, have lost your power.”

Bound. Once stronger than all the nations
of men, Death was lay upon his face, and the man passed by him, into the light
again.

For not even Death could escape the fate,
which he had so frequently wrought. For here, he had no place to stand. Here,
in the glow of the UnFuneral. Here, in the presence of the Prince of the
UnDeath. The New Adam.

He who snatched souls from the jaws of
darkness, and rescued them into the light. Before him, Death’s knees were weak.
The axe fell to his own ankles, and he, one time the gate-keeper, found himself
peering deeper into the darkness which waited beyond, into that mouth which
would swallow him, someday.

For Death was dead. His time had expired,
and in the light of the Death-Conqueror, the Soul-Saver, Death was no more than
a memory. For Christ the Unbreakable has broken the Breaker.

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About Me

My name is Jeff. I am a writer of words, and a servant of King Jesus. Lover of good books, great coffee, dear friends and sunshine, living in a world forged by words, in a land spun from golden summers and grey winters. I see things differently, and I write what I see.